What it Feels Like to be in a Hit!
Even before I studied Theatre, I have wondered what it would be like to be in an original hit play. Part of my love of Theatre is its immediacy, and the opportunity to do something just a little different every performance to ‘brand’ it as its own experience – something that you don’t get from screen acting. The thought of being on stage night after night in a play that there was a conversation about outside the theatre was, for me, a view of heaven: Especially when I was trying to make my own original characterization more and more ‘real’.
Of course, for this to happen, you have to be in a long run, a financial reality past most of the resources of most theatre companies. You also have to perform it in a large market – something that I have been concerned about in my own city. You also have to be cast, which is the most everyday of hurdles, but the largest one to us actors. Imagine, therefore, my surprise at everything that has happened over the last two months (September and October 2016).
I received an e-mail explaining my perfection for a role in a new play. It was Equity, so there would also be some kind of small financial compensation, too. Oh – and it was a two week rehearsal period followed by a four week run. I jumped at the chance. One of the advantages of working a day job whenever I can, rather than inside someone else’s place of work and time constraints, means that I can work during the evenings, if something like this actually happens – and it was about to.
I had the script for a couple of weeks before rehearsals started and managed to more-or-less learn my first scene while I was on a movie shoot the week before. However, all the work would be done ‘in the room’ in front of one of the writers and Artistic Director of the theatre company – a first for me, and the first time in almost thirty years that I had rehearsed ‘for a living’. Luckily, the cast (a group of incredibly talented and professional artistes.) were wonderful with me, as I struggled to come to terms with the fact that I was actually ‘one of the group’, and not some interloper cast by accident – you know those feelings.
First night was a Black Tie affair, with Dressing Room Champagne at its end, and then we moved straight into eight performances per week. My acting partners were obviously in the same frame of mind as I was, and the subtle changes in character, movement and delivery not only ensured we were all word-perfect, it made every scene a cliff edge adventure of risk and balance.
While I was happy with the first week, the theatre company was obviously hoping for larger audiences. We were up against a very large film festival in the city, so the audience numbers of 30 – 40 each performance was a little below their wishes. Early in the second week, however, two radio interviews with the writers were broadcast, and a video interview I had done with another cast member during rehearsals went a little viral. Suddenly, we were full for the rest of the run.
To be able to go to ‘work’ every evening (continually running my script during my transit journeys), and to have people say that ‘Oh, I have heard of that play, are you in it?’ was amazing. Passing Transit shelters and coffee shops that featured posters of our show, and knowing that the theatre would be full that afternoon or evening, while you could continue to express yourself in the way you had always wanted to was, I found, an incredible validation of who you are, and of the work that the entire company did together.
You always said that you could do this, and you have passed enough auditions to prove it. Now, you are good enough to be paid for it, and have your city know what you are doing. Of course, by its end, we were all looking forward to doing something else with our evenings – 30+ complete runs of this piece was the most that any of us had done for a while, but while it’s run is over, the ‘afterglow’ remains – and will remain so for a long time. Here’s the production website: http://www.comfortcottagestheplay.com/index.html
